Forfaiting for Exporters: Practical Solutions for Global Trade Finance

Book Description

This new book offers an up-to-date insight into forfaiting, an important trade finance tool currently experiencing a rapid resurgence in popularity. The book reveals the mechanics of an 'a forfait' transaction, how the risks are measured, different practical applications and likely future developments. It will be required reading for all exporters and bankers looking to use the forfait market to profit from trade with 'risky' countries or emerging markets.

Customer Reviews:

Chart of Account.......2000-02-16

Standard Chart of Account for bussines related to forfaiting trade and balance sheet format and profit & loss statement.

Excellent presentation of this key method of export finance.......1998-10-09

Our consulting staff considers this book to be one of our most valuable resources when clients ask us about receiving accelerated payment for their export sales. We recommend this book for financial and marketing executives, especially those with smaller companies that have a need for a continual cash flow. John R. Jagoe, Director, Export Institute.

Essential for newcomers and pro's.......1998-04-02

I have read this book, checked the examples and the syntax. It should find its place on the desk of every newcomer and professional who wants to be active in this very particular market. The author is not only well known and respected in the market, he is also willing and able to share his knowledge and experience, which he does excellently. This book can definitely recommended. END

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Personnel Policy in the City: The Politics of Jobs in Oakland (Oakland Project Series)
Frank J. Thompson
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills And Talent

ASIN: 0520035097

Book Description

This is the start of a long process to ultimately operate new advanced capabilities at Paranal that could keep up with the exploding need for large and complex astrophysical data sets. A modern instrument represents a very significant investment in cash, human resources and time. Such a meeting gives a precious yardstick to evaluate the competitiveness of 1st generation instruments and associated current and forthcoming proposals for 1st generation upgrades. This is also crucial to orient the large research and development effort that will provide he very foundation on which 2nd generation VLT instrumentation could be built. Finally, it represents a significant step towards defining the hopes and goals for the future Extremely Large Telescope to come. The first outcome of this meeting, already in progress, is outlined in the epilogue.

Book Description

Topics discussed include: Solid State Electrochemistry, Kinetics of Electrochemical Hydrogen Entry into Metals and Alloys, Electrochemistry of Titanium, Electrochemical Oxidation of Organics on Synthetic Diamond-based Electrodes, Fuel Cells, Trace-Anion Catalysis of Outer-Sphere Heterogeneous Charge-Transfer Reactions, Thermodynamic and Transport Properties of Bridging Electrolyte - Water Systems Hydrogen, diamond electrodes, and fuel cells were all topics of intense interest at the 2003 ECS meeting in Paris.

Book Description

This is a book about using MuPAD in teaching undergraduate mathematics and solving undergraduate mathematics problems with MuPAD. The author explains basic principles of MuPAD commands and how to write simple programs or to develop interactive environments for teaching mathematics. The text gives a large number of useful examples from undergraduate mathematics collected by the author during his long teaching experience. A web site with examples, MuPAD graphs, exercises and solutions, etc., supports the book.

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The best American crime novels deserve their place in the pantheon of American literature, but they hold special interest for cinema enthusiasts, who can both compare them to the movies they became and can roll imaginary films of the stories in their minds. Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s is the second of Library of America's two-volume anthology of underground U.S. fiction. The first anthology featured works from the 1930s and '40s that had been made into classic films noir. This volume focuses on fiction written after the crime genre had acquired conventions that younger writers toyed with and sometimes broke. The movies made from such stories were equally radical.

Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley is the source for René Clément's bristling Purple Noon, a movie that features Alain Delon's quintessential performance. David Goodis's Down There inspired François Truffaut's neo-noir masterpiece Shoot the Piano Player. Jim Thompson, the brilliant author who scripted The Killing and Paths of Glory for Stanley Kubrick, wrote several novels that have been turned into movies, including The Grifters and The Getaway. He is represented here by one of his most uncompromising works, The Killer Inside Me, which was filmed by Burt Kennedy in 1976. Charles Willeford's Pick-Up and Chester Himes's The Real Cool Killers have not yet been made into movies, but the blistering prose and nihilistic worlds of these authors, and of all the writers represented in this volume, is astonishingly cinematic. This lovely hardcover edition contains biographical, textual, and explanatory notes.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent compilation.......2007-01-07

The other reviewers misunderstand "Pick Up", (****warning -- spoiler****) which is a fascinating novel because the narrator is mentally disturbed and completely unreliable. This fact explains the "twist" ending, a number of apparent editing errors and the unlikely events that occur throughout.

The Final Volume on the "Crime Novels" Series.......2005-11-03

"Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950's" is the second and last volume of the hardboiled anthology published by the Library of America starting with the volume devoted to the genre in the 30's and 40's. This follow-up continues the saga of run-down characters hardened by experience and tough luck. The familiar cast of roguish males, femme fatales, and temperamental and violent detectives set the stage for a diverse and entertaining ride into the depths of the underworld.

"The Killer Inside Me" - Jim Thompson's most popular work is a memorable tale of a Texas law enforcer with a sinister past whose dark and psychotic nature is cunningly veiled behind a genial facade that barely contains "the sickness" which the main character has successfully concealed. A sudden turn of events unleashes the beast inside leading to a tragic odyssey of disillusion, violence, and murder. Pioneering in it's time for revealing the inner mind of the serial killer, the bracing prose and chilling character development makes this work one of the best in the genre.

"The Talented Mr. Ripley" - Tom Ripley is a con artist successfully making ends meet through one of the most reprehensible professions in New York City. A drifter and social outcast, one night in a bar he comes across a parent of an old acquaintance he barely recalls and is asked to do a favor. When he consents, his true nature unfolds in this story of murder, sexuality, and identity. Made into film in 1999 starring Matt Damon in the leading role, this cosmopolitan travelogue with a Decadent touch in the end introduced the world to one of the most oddly sympathetic and diabolical characters in Literature.

"Pick-Up" - Charles Willeford's winning style successfully conveys the sad and tragic tale of two lost alcoholics in the skid row section of San Francisco in the 1950's. Scene by depressing scene the author chronicles the faith, hope, and disillusionment of a couple whose time revolve around the contents of a bottle. The engrossing prose is marred unfortunately with an unbelievable twist and dissapointing ending.

"Down There" - The best selection of the entire series, "Down There" is an unforgettable account of a barroom piano man whose days of glory were ended by tragedy. Rendered indifferent to life by his soul-breaking experiences, he meets an equally lost soul and together they encounter adversity supporting each other as only similarly dark-fated individuals can. The heartbreaking ending still haunts me whenever I think about it.

"The Real Cool Killers" - Blaxploitation on speed! The talented Chester Himes vividly conjures this adrenaline yarn of two black detectives taking on the streets of Harlem in no holds barred action. Race, violence, and loathsome scenemakers feverishly grapple in this heat-inducing neon nocturne of urban society. Black humor at one of it's very finest.

Flawed but highly readable, these long forgotten and out of print works have been handsomely restored and given ample tribute by the laudable Library of America. Wanting to familiarize myself with the enduring genre, reading the two vols. of the "Crime Novels" series has been a pleasant introduction and reading experience to me.

More Noir.......2002-01-15

This book is the second volume in the Library of America set on American crime noir. I enjoyed the first volume so much that I decided to read the second one during Christmas break. Once again, the LOA has done a nice job of collecting a fine series of stories. These stories were written during the 1950's and 1960's. The book is nice to look at too; it's covered in red cloth with a cloth bookmark.

The first story is from the demented mind of Jim Thompson. This story, called The Killer Inside Me, is much better than The Grifters, a book by Thompson that I read some time ago. The Grifters seemed to be pretty one-dimensional with respect to its characters. This story is the exact opposite. A deputy sheriff in a Texas city has a terrible secret. He plays dumb on the outside, but inside he is a cunning sociopath. A long simmering resentment leads to a terrible revenge. Bodies quickly stack up as a result. This seems to be the story that Thompson is best known for and it's no surprise why. This is a dark, twisted tale with a grim ending.

Patricia Highsmith wrote a whole series of stories concerning Tom Ripley. The one included here is The Talented Mr. Ripley, probably better known due to the recent film with Matt Damon. This tale isn't as noir as I would have liked, but it still has enough twists and turns to keep anybody in suspense. Ripley is a low class conniver who ingratiates himself into a wealthy family who wants him to go to Italy and bring back their son. Ripley sees the potential for bucks and meets up with the kid and his lady friend. Of course, things take a turn for the worse and the bodies start stacking up. This story was probably my least favorite out of the entire collection.

The next story, Pick-Up, by Charles Willeford, is a depressing tale about two alcoholics who go bump in the night. The story follows the adventures of this alcoholic couple as they attempt suicide, check themselves into a mental hospital, and drink themselves into a stupor. After the female half of the couple dies in another suicide pact, the story switches to a prison tale. The end is somewhat of a twist, but really doesn't impact the story that much, in my opinion. Again, not really noir as noir can be, but still a fine story that can stand by itself.

Down There, by David Goodis, is a wild ride of a tale. Full of suspense and death, this is a great story that deserves to be included here. A family of ne'er-do-wells drags their talented piano-playing brother into their personal problems. The background information on Eddie, the piano player, is phenomenal. The tragedy that has struck him once is bound to repeat itself again. This story has great bit characters that really liven up the background.

The final story, by Chester Himes, is The Real Cool Killers. This is noir on acid: pornographic violence, massive doses of grim reality, and characters you're glad to see get killed. The story is set in Harlem and involves two tough cops named Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. Someone kills a white guy in Harlem and the cops try and track them down. This story contains one of the funniest descriptions of a person falling off a balcony that I've ever read (and I've read a few, disturbingly enough). The writing has enough similes and metaphors to give Raymond Chandler an apoplectic fit. A cool story that certainly deserves a place in this book.

If you like noir, read these two LOA novels. They are long (together they're almost 2000 pages) but it is definitely worth the effort. These kinds of stories are just a great way to while away some free time and relieve stress.

This is a Great Collection.......2001-05-09

I usually don't like genre fiction, but this book is a great collection of "Noir" novels. Film buffs will be particularly interested in reading the novel on which "Shoot the Piano Player" was based, as well as the first "Mr. Ripley" novel (much nastier and darker than the recent film). Most highly recommended.

Great Collection, Attractively Packaged.......2000-07-08

This is a fine collection of crime novels in a durable, easy to read format. It starts off great with "The Killer Inside Me", the all time best trip through a killer's mind. The selections by Highsmith and Goodis, while not as intense as "Killer", are just as good in their own quieter ways. The only novel I would have left out is "Pickup"; while I like Willeford I think this is one of his more leaden performances. I also have a quibble with the volume's title, as the word "noir" has been beaten to death and doesn't tell us much about most of these books. "The Talented Mr. Ripley" owes more to Henry James than to Raymond Chandler, and "Killer" doesn't feature any dark city streets. Quibbles aside, however, the book is well worth buying.

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Telecom Deals Now: Understanding the Interplay of Regulatory, Corporate, Securities & Bankruptcy Issues (Corporate Law and Practice Course Handbook Series)

Manufacturer: Practising Law Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Bankruptcy | Business | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1402400128

Book Description

As a member of Salvador Allende’s Personal Guards (GAP), Luz Arce worked with leaders of the Socialist Party during the Popular Unity Government from 1971 to1973. In the months following the coup, Arce served as a militant with others from the Left who opposed the military junta led by Augusto Pinochet, which controlled the country from 1973 to1990. Along with thousands of others in Chile, Arce was detained and tortured by Chile’s military intelligence service, the DINA, in their attempt to eliminate alternative voices and ideologies in the country. Arce’s testimonial offers the harrowing story of the abuse she suffered and witnessed as a survivor of detention camps, such as the infamous Villa Grimaldi.
But when faced with threats made to her family, including her young son, and with the possibility that she could be murdered as thousands of others had been, Arce began to collaborate with the Chilean military in their repression of national resistance groups and outlawed political parties. Her testimonial thus also offers a unique perspective from within the repressive structures as she tells of her work as a DINA agent whose identifications even lead to the capture of some of her former friends and compañeros.
During Chile’s return to democracy in the early 1990s, Arce experienced two fundamental changes in her life that led to the writing of her story. The first was a deep spiritual renewal through her contacts with the Catholic Church whose Vicariate of Solidarity had fought for human rights in the country during the dictatorship. The second was her decision to participate within the legal system to identify and bring to justice those members of the military who were responsible for the crimes committed from 1973 to1990. Luz Arce’s book invites readers to rethink the definition of testimonial narrative in Latin America through the unique perspective of a survivor-witness-confessor.

The Inferno: A Story of Terror and Survival in Chile (Living in Latin America)

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The Inferno: A Story of Terror and Survival in Chile (Living in Latin America)
Luz Arce
Manufacturer: University of Wisconsin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORV0WQ

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The Inferno: A Story of Terror and Survival in Chile (Living in Latin America)
Stacey Alba D. Skar Luz Arce
Manufacturer: University of Wisconsin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORV15M

Customer Reviews:

Thomas Wharton's World.......2000-02-16

Journals are my favorite historical reading. I was amazed at TKW's World - and his view of the final antebellum years in New Orleans.

The read is interesting for what it includes and what it excludes. TKW knew and met every major citizen of the time; from Polk to Beauregard to Dr. Barton. You get a very detailed picture of what it was like for a man of the times; his everyday travels and travails. What it excludes is equally interesting - very little on the women he lived with, slavery, Mardi Gras and occupation.

The accent is definitely architecture and I found myself scanning - rather than reading - page after page of discussions on bricks and beams. Also, novice that I am, I found two errors (in the footnotes).

Still when I reached the end, it was a shock to the system. It felt as though TKW could not deal with occupation - of New Orleans and of his beloved Custom House - and just decided to die. It left me wanting more.

A very luxurious book, richly printed with tons of illustrations.

Favorite passage: "Some are Americans, but the French predominate, and the difference between them appears to be that the former have a little to say about everything, the latter a great deal to say about nothing at all."

Book Description

Henry Adams has been a neglected figure in recent years. The Education of Henry Adams is widely accepted as a classic of American letters, but his other work is little read except by specialists. His brilliant journalism is out of print, while Mont Saint Michel and Chartres and the novels Democracy and Esther receive little attention. Even the monumental History of the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, considered by some to be the greatest history written by any American, seems noticed only by scholars of that period.

James P. Young, author of the highly regarded Reconsidering American Liberalism, seeks to revive interest in the thought of Adams by extracting core ideas from his writings concerning both American political development and the course of world history and then showing their relevance to the contemporary longing for a democratic revival.

In this revisionist study, Young denies that Adams was a reactionary critic of democracy and instead contends that he was an idealistic, though often disappointed, advocate of representative government. Young focuses on Adams's belief that capitalist industrial development during the Gilded Age had debased American ideals and then turns to a careful study of Adams's famous contrast of the unity of medieval society with the fragmentation of modern technological society.

Though fully aware of Adams's concerns about technology, Young rejects the idea that Adams was bitterly opposed to twentieth century developments in that field. He shows that though a liberal democrat with inclinations toward reform, Adams is much too sophisticated to be captured by any simple label.

This book is part of the American Political Thought series.

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Henry Adams: The Historian as Political Theorist
James P. Young
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MUFI4Q

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A brave reassessment based on previously unavailable source material

More than second fiddle!

And suddenly the love that wouldn't shut up

A good biography, but not the best

Biography At Its Best

Bosie: The Man, The Poet, The Lover of Oscar Wilde
Douglas Murray
Manufacturer: Miramax Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Amazon.com

Almost everyone knows what Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas meant by "the Love that dare not speak its name"--but what happened after that name was dragged into court? In Oscar Wilde's case, his affair with Douglas, that minor poet and major pretty boy, was as neatly resolved as the Greek tragedy it resembled. Just three years after his release from prison on charges of "gross indecency," Wilde died broken, impoverished, and alone in a Parisian hotel. But Bosie himself lived on for nearly 45 contentious years after Wilde's death: an entire lifetime, in effect, during which he married, converted to Catholicism, conducted an epic feud with Wilde's literary executor, Robert Ross, and renounced everything about his former life, including Wilde himself.

In Bosie, Douglas Murray has used previously unavailable letters and manuscripts to construct a nuanced portrait of the aesthetes' golden boy, including his second life as a devoutly undecadent squire. Born into an ancient family with a memorably lunatic streak, Lord Douglas as a young man was charming, dissolute, and almost preternaturally handsome. (Jude Law played him in the 1998 film Wilde, and the resemblance is uncanny.) Regrettably, his gift for scandal often overshadowed his other talents; Murray for one is convinced that Douglas was one of the great English poets of his time, a master of the sonnet form who has been shamefully neglected by scholars and readers alike. Here, then, is the real tragedy: if Douglas had lived less he might have been remembered more.

Yet Murray doesn't mince words about the nastier sides of Douglas's nature either: Bosie was a snob, a raving anti-Semite, and like his unbalanced father, prone to destructive rages. One might well say, as James Agate did about Douglas's Autobiography, that his life story is "a record of some pretty good quarrelling." That's characteristic English understatement for you: Douglas seems to have spent much of his life in court, either suing or being sued for libel. Wilde's trial set a pattern Bosie seemed obliged to repeat until he himself was sent to jail after yet another libel charge (instigated by Winston Churchill, of all people) finally stuck. Wormwood Scrubs in the 1920s was no picnic, and Douglas emerged a humbled man; towards the end of his life, he even achieved a measure of reconciliation with his younger self. Murray skillfully conveys the pathos of these final years--like Wilde's, lonely and poverty-stricken, but unlike Wilde's, largely forgotten. This groundbreaking biography does much to correct that historical oversight, and in doing so, provides a fascinating account of one of poetry's most complex personalities. --Mary Park

Book Description

Lord Alfred Douglas, or 'Bosie' as he was known , is destined to be remembered as the lover of Oscar Wilde. Dissolute, well-born and beautiful as a young man, his role in the events that led to Oscar Wilde's trial and imprisonment determined the strange celebrity which haunted him until his death. Biographies of Wilde generally give only a cursory account of what happened to Douglas after Wilde's death, but Bosie recounts the full and absorbing story of his complex life. A successful though now obscure poet, he renounced homosexuality after converting to Roman Catholicism and embarked on an ill-fated marriage to Olive Custance. Lord Alfred's time was largely consumed by his growing interest in religion and costly feuds - he was imprisoned for libeling Winston Churchill - and he died a neglected and lonely figure in 1945.

Douglas Murray has had unprecedented access to many letters and key literary manuscripts, and presents evidence which casts a new light on the relationship between Wilde and Bosie. Indeed, Murray has succeeded where Bosie himself failed in securing the release of a British government file which was to be sealed until 2043. The result is a genuinely groundbreaking biography, and the definitive account of a fascinating life.

Customer Reviews:

A brave reassessment based on previously unavailable source material.......2005-11-28

There are a number of reasons why "Bosie" is a remarkable book--even setting aside the youth of the author. (He was 14 when he began the research and 20 when this biography was published.) First, Murray somehow gained the confidence of the surviving family members related to Lord Douglas and his circle, and he enjoyed unprecedented access to both reminiscences and documents. In addition, the author managed to secure the release of the British government files from Douglas's imprisonment--papers that, by law, were to remain sealed for another half century. And third (and foremost), he has upended the portrait of Lord Douglas written by one of the twentieth century's foremost scholars, Richard Ellmann.

As readers of the now-standard biography of Oscar Wilde know, Ellmann portrayed Douglas as a manipulative yet beautiful cipher with not much in the way of wit or intelligence. Murray, in contrast, depicts Douglas as a worthy companion to Wilde (in spite of their frequent and legendary spats) and an artist in his own right. While certainly not on a par with Wilde, Douglas produced a respectable body of work and was, during his life, an appreciated (if litigious) editor. A true assessment of Douglas's worth, I think, would fall somewhere in between these two portraits, although Murray's book contains the more well-rounded assessment: while trying to revive Douglas's reputation, it does not try to whitewash his notoriety and imprudence.

Indeed, most readers will share Murray's fascination with Lord Douglas's life. Even after Wilde's death and Douglas's conversion to Catholicism and renunciation of homosexuality, Douglas refused to fade away, becoming "a man who confessed that he was popularly believed to revel in litigation." And litigate he did: the dramatis personae of Douglas's court cases are a veritable who's who of the English literary scene, and the parade of libels and lawssuits culminates in a bizarre and foolish challenge to none other than Winston Churchill.

Although Douglas's life is perversely intriguing, I am hard-pressed to share Murray's enthusiasm for the poetry itself--and this, of course, may be more a matter of taste than of intrinsic worth. Douglas's oeuvre divides rather neatly into three categories: nonsense verse (mostly for children), biting--and often nasty--lampoons, and staunchly traditional sonnets and lyrics. The first group is best forgotten, and the second is (naturally) dated; it is in the last group where one can find the occasional gem, the memorable stanza, the well-turned phrase. The most famous of these poems, because of its notoriety, will always (and justifiably) be "Two Loves," with its celebrated closing line: "I am the Love that dare not speak its name." Murray also rediscovers for the reader a few other notable pieces. But, in spite of the handful of contemporaries who touted the "belief that Douglas ranked as a sonneteer with Shakespeare," a few clever lines and outstanding verses does not a master make.

Murray does, however, raise a valid point. As with Douglas's life so with his poetry; the man was his own worst enemy even when it came to his literary reputation. While Douglas was threatening, cajoling, and suing most of his enemies and many of his friends, he also spent three decades inveighing (rather vituperatively) against modernism. Auden, Eliot, Isherwood, Pound, Yeats, H. G. Wells, D. H. Lawrence--he regarded them all as barbarians at the gates. His taste proved to be obstinately backward-looking, and his outspokenness not only brought into question the relevance of his own verse but also helped to reveal him as a bit of a dinosaur. In many ways, his verse was a hundred years behind the times, but had he been born a century earlier, his meager output still would have been eclipsed by the poetry of Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Shelley, and even the lesser Romantic poets. Nevertheless, Douglas's life and his poetry are deserving of this valuable and refreshingly lively reassessment.

More than second fiddle!.......2005-08-23

'Bosie' paints as rounded a picture of a character known usually for his supporting role in the Oscar Wilde circus as is possible for a subject widely viewed as having little worth beyond his time with his lover and muse. As a first book for so young a writer, Douglas Murray has done us the inestimable favour of elucidating from Lord Alfred Douglas' poetry, letters and other writings the flawed character and lesser talent of someone significantly more interesting than the two-dimensional upper-class arm candy he is frequently portrayed as. Having burnt his first flame in the dazzling candelabra of Wilde's celebrity, Bosie is so often overlooked and dismissed. Murray's thorough research and ample quotation from Bosie's life and works independent of Wilde cannot but help an enquiring reader to a better understanding of their relationship and of the bearing that Bosie's family had on Wilde's fate. This is all the more remarkable for coming from a writer so close in age, and convceivably the outlook of a yet-to-mature individual, to his subject than most other biographers. I look forward eagerly to Douglas Murray's future work.

And suddenly the love that wouldn't shut up.......2004-12-26

Having read The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde by Joseph Pearce, I decided that it would be interesting to know more about the person who is made out to be the villain in Oscar Wilde's downfall.

Bosie by Douglas Murray is a detailed book chronicling the life of Lord Alfred Douglas. It is a detailed account of a man hounded by family traits, his own desires, repentence, regrets and sad ending. It really is unfair to blame Alfred Douglas for Wilde's downfall. Wilde, if anything, was self destructive and not only destroyed himself, but everyone around him, including his wife and children, as well as Alfred Douglas. Murray is clear that upon renouncing his wasted and immoral youth Douglas became a moralist, like the father he hated, and became addicted to litigating every slight made against him. Wilde's circle of friends and admirers needed someone to blame for his demise, so they picked Lord Alfred Douglas. This book shows that like all moralists Douglas became paranoid and biased, but later in life did truly repent and apologized for all the harm he had done. He died penniless, alone and very, very sad. Like Wilde, Douglas's actions also destroyed his marriage and the life of his child. Bosie by Douglas Murray is required reading for all those who want to make up their own minds on Oscar Wilde and know more about the man who figured so prominently in Wilde's life.

A good biography, but not the best.......2004-05-11

While Douglas Murray had access to Douglas family materials heretofore unavailable, he of course did not have access to Bosie Douglas himself. But another, now deceased scholar of all things Wildean, Rupert Croft Cooke, did. Cooke, author of dozens of novels, biographies and other books, knew Lord Alfred Douglas when he, Cooke, was a youngster. As a result, his book, entitled Bosie: Lord Alfred Douglas, His Friends and Enemies, gives an intimate look at Bosie in more mellow old age. Cooke, a former newspaperman in the glory days of Fleet Street, was also a much more lively writer than Douglas Murray. His book is out of print, but can commonly be found in used book shops.

Biography At Its Best.......2003-07-28

I was stunned by the quality of Mr. Murray's writing.

Mr. Murray enables the reader to feel as if he knows Bosie, understands Bosie, and has been a witness to Bosie's life himself. Bosie's life as well as his relationship with Oscar is so well written that the reader understands the spirit and tone of the life and the relationship. Very well done !!!

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